For two days, I underwent a Basic Life Support training at the Hamad International Training Center along with safety officers and engineers and I would like to put into record my experience during my two-day training.
DAY 1: OCTOBER 4, 2011
I arrived at the center 30 minutes earlier the scheduled time, I met three fellow filipino who later told me to register my name on the attendance sheet. At around 4pm, the center was filled with people who were loud, friendly and seemingly excited men. We spend the dead time glancing and exhanging friendly smiles to each other. Few made their acquaintances and usual greetings while I sit at the corner and continue to observe the people around me. Im not the "Hi everyone, Im Prince" kind of person. I hoped that my effortful-lightened up face would give them the impression that Im not snob and ready to make friends. I figured that these men knew each other and later found out that they worked on the same company. I was one among the few others who were added to the group to reach the desired number of participants. They took pictures and had the training tarpulins as their background. Then the instructor all summoned us to the lecture room and commenced the training.
Everyone sounded interested and were fairly participative. The instructors on the other hand had their serious look and voices with a touch of appropriate cracking of jokes. I was impressed with the manner they explained the concepts of life support on lay-mans term. Having these instructors, you don't need any background on medicine to understand why this and this should be done. They spoke with a middle eastern accent but their English were perfect and clear.
Last part was the return demonstration of CPR and we were grouped into three with 10 persons each. My group consists of 4 Filipinos, 3 nigerians and 3 indians. All of us were able to demostrate the proper way of doing CPR given different situations and that's because we had great instructors. The Nigerians were fun to be with. The moment they crack their jokes, we found all ourselves wide-mouthed.
DAY 2: October 5, 2011
The call time was 3:30pm and I almost didn't made it because I fall into a deep sleep. (I was tired since I came from the hospital with my mom for her follow-up checkup). I slept at around 1:30pm and forgot to switch on the alarm. Thank God, out of nowhere, I suddenly woke up at around 3:15pm. I rushed to the bathroom and had a very quick shower. Everything was done in a breeze. By 3:20, Im out of my building and began walking, occasionally checking for taxi within the perimeter. Luckily, I got a taxi two minutes after and made it to the center just in time.
The second day was basically practical and written exams and almost everyone got it. During our break sessions I decided to be more sociable and approached people and had a short chat with them. The day ended with the distribution of all our certificates and ID.
I admire the vision of Qatar- to be the leading Arab country with a mix of London and New York. They invested not only in infrastructure but also with its people. Basic life support has been made available to the citizens and expats of Qatar. As for my line of work, its one of the requirement to get a license to practice my profession. If everyone knows how to do CPR, unnecessary deaths would be a thing of the past.
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